Kaz Hirai on why tricky PS3 development is a good thing

SCE president seems happy that game makers are finding development difficult

As some game developers reportedly continue to struggle working with PS3, comments made by Sony Computer Entertainment's president, Kaz Hirai, in the latest issue of Official PlayStation Magazine suggest that the Sony boss is happy that developing for the machine is proving to be a headache for some coders.

"If you look back at the commentary we received when we launched PS2, there was a lot of talk to the effect that 'It's very difficult to program for' and 'It's easier on a Dreamcast'. It's happened before," Hirai told OPM, acknowledging that PS3 is a more complex animal for developers to work withcompared to its rivals. "If they came back and told me, 'PS3? We can do this in a heartbeat,' that would be worrying because what it is telling me is that we're not pushing the envelope from a technology standpoint."

Hirai also commented that gamers would have quite a wait before they could really experience the benefit of PS3's envelope pushing techno-gubbins: "The power that we've packed into PS3 will really manifest itself in software titles that come up four, five or six years down the line."